Updated

03/20/2015 - 11:15am

Modern varieties of rice may produce high yields, but they can't withstand the tough conditions that are becoming more common as climate change affects farming. That's why Indian scientists are turning to older, indigenous grains to keep communities fed.

Updated

03/18/2015 - 3:15pm

What do you do when all other efforts to persuade locals to protect endangered rhinos have failed? Pay them to harvest the rhinos' dung and use it to make paper. That's what an Indian startup company is trying, with early success.

If the mere mention of the word bagpipe causes your mind to wander off to the windswept Scottish Highlands, hang on! There's a group of passionate bagpipe campaigners on a quest to show there's more to the pipes than playing on the heath in a kilt.

Holi is a Hindu festival in northern India that celebrates the coming of spring on the lunar calendar. Celebrants spray each other with colors. It can get pretty raucous. Indian-American writer Deepak Singh remembers Holi as a kid in Lucknow, and thinks about what it would be like to celebrate at his current home, in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Updated

03/05/2015 - 9:30am

YouTube took down copies of a highly controversial BBC documentary about the 2012 gang rape in New Delhi Wednesday and Thursday after Indian government officials blocked "India's Daughter" from airing on television or being excerpted in print. The director has appealed to the prime minister, saying “India should be embracing this film — not blocking it with a knee-jerk hysteria without even seeing it."

Updated

03/04/2015 - 10:45pm

Americans aren't the only ones who love the Netflix series 'House of Cards.' Data show that China is downloading the show more than any other country — but do viewers know it's just a show and not actually how the US government operates?

Seeing The News: India's Holi festival is set to begin on Friday but celebrations have already begun. And, your city's morning commute is nothing compared to New Delhi's. Also, rebel fighters take a break in Syria to check updates on their mobile phone.

There are plenty of people learning Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, and those numbers are growing. But those students typically learn the language to read old books, and it turns out trying to use it as a spoken language is a challenge.

Deepak Singh grew up in Lucknow, India, thinking Indians were the good guys and Pakistanis the bad guys. Now that he's moved to the United States and finally met people from Pakistan, he sees things differently.

How should a woman ask for a raise? She shouldn't, said Microsoft's CEO at recent women's tech conference. But if that sounds shocking, it wasn't for many Indian women who have been told throughout their lives to keep quiet while the men are encouraged to get ahead.

Google India made an ad to show how the search engine could help people reconnect with old friends. Now the campaign has touched an emotional chord across Pakistan and India, by reawakening memories of the painful partition of India in 1947.

When India celebrated the success of its first Mars mission, a photo of middle-aged female scientists draped in saris became the viral face of that triumph. But that doesn't mean female scientists face an easy path, and Rhitu Chatterjee says much more needs to be done for gender equality.

A photo of three pioneering women doctors has been circulating in social media -- but they're not wearing white lab coats. They're wearing culturally significant dress and they represent the first women doctors from their countries, back in the 1800s.

After an ongoing lawsuit, Penguin Books India will recall its book "The Hindus: An Alternative History." News of the recall has made waves in academic circles in India, and spurred sales in the UK and US.

Deepak Singh never meeting an openly gay person when he was growing up in India. That, of course, has changed in the years since, with people of many different sexual orientations coming into his life. But the news out of India's Supreme Court decision, makes his heart grieve.

Turbaned and proud. That's Vishavjit Singh who responded to the hate directed at him after 9/11 by drawing political cartoons about being Sikh in America. Then he got really bold and dressed up as Captain America and took to the streets of New York City.

Google India made an ad to show how the search engine could help people reconnect with old friends. Now the campaign has touched an emotional chord across Pakistan and India, by reawakening memories of the painful partition of India in 1947.

A photo of three pioneering women doctors has been circulating in social media -- but they're not wearing white lab coats. They're wearing culturally significant dress and they represent the first women doctors from their countries, back in the 1800s.

When India celebrated the success of its first Mars mission, a photo of middle-aged female scientists draped in saris became the viral face of that triumph. But that doesn't mean female scientists face an easy path, and Rhitu Chatterjee says much more needs to be done for gender equality.

Darsh Preet Singh got special permission from the NCAA to wear his turban while playing basketball. His college basketball jersey now hangs at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, part of an exhibition on Indian Americans.

If the mere mention of the word bagpipe causes your mind to wander off to the windswept Scottish Highlands, hang on! There's a group of passionate bagpipe campaigners on a quest to show there's more to the pipes than playing on the heath in a kilt.

Ishita Malaviya isn't just a surfer — she India's only professional female surfer. She pushes cultural boundaries with her surfing, and, when she's not competing, she's busy teaching Indian kids how to take to the waves at the Shaka Surf Club in the state of Karnataka.

Turbaned and proud. That's Vishavjit Singh who responded to the hate directed at him after 9/11 by drawing political cartoons about being Sikh in America. Then he got really bold and dressed up as Captain America and took to the streets of New York City.

About 600 million Indians live without toilets, and women and girls bear the brunt of that shortage. While men can and do relieve themselves almost anywhere, many women must choose between scarce, dangerous public facilities or expensive pay toilets when they need to pee.